Roundabouts

[JimmyJeffers]

Saddest thing about it all is that deep down many of these folk are angry frustrated people desperate for community, fed up with visible decline, wishobg for a sense of certainty in a very uncertain, fragmented and often unfair world.

I flit between this line of thought or its simply that many just have an inclination towards racism/bigotry and revel in being a nasty arsehole. Sadly feeling it is more the latter these days.

 

[Swartzy]

Train delayed due to people trying to hang flags from bridges, passenger says

Rail expert Noel Dolphin says he was told his train was delayed due to "people being lowered over bridge parapets to attach flags".

www.bbc.co.uk

They should have changed his name, that is actually hard work to take serious when it's referring to a Mr Dolphin...

 

[Yarrgh]

Red and white....

Hopefully we won't tolerate the Liverpool colours anywhere near our ground.

Had to Google countries with blue flags.

I'm off to claim my local roundabout for Somalia.

 

[Rita_Poon]

I'd consider myself pretty hard left economically and wooly/liberal lefty socially.

I grew up in Boston, which to the uninitiated is a small market town in South Lincolnshire. It's an hour to the nearest city - Peterborough or Lincoln, take your pick. The main work is in the surrounding industrial farmland and agriculture supply chain. The shellfish industry is long gone, although there remains a profitable port. The biggest employer is the NHS by way of the large hospital that serves the surrounding area. The town has two grammar schools and each year all the 18 year olds from those schools leave for university and never return.

As a youth I worked in the various packhouses and on the land. The labour is largely supplied by gangmasters, who charge their premium for supplying the work to the employer and then use every wheeze in the book to skim off the gang workers - transport tariff, PPE tariff, administration charges galore. The work is hard and boring. For those who've left school at 16 with limited qualifications, options for employment are pretty much limited to working in the packhouse or on the land.

In around 2003 a huge number of Eastern Europeans began to arrive, displacing the Portuguese who'd been working in the area since 2001. They were compliant, hard working and were happy to take accomodation from the gangmasters. The amounts they were paid were considered sufficient and many were either saving to move back home or were sending money home. The gangmasters, landowners and packhouse owners liked them as they never complained, always turned up for work and would happily work overtime whenever called upon to do so. The local workers were smeared as lazy. I worked in packhouse and on the land from the age of 16 in 1998 to around 2003 and can honestly say the British workers were timely, honest and hard working, just not open to exploitation.

The population of the town grew from around 30,000 to around 50,000 - a huge increase. As happens with immigrant populations, the Eastern Europeans wanted their own shops, drinking establishments etc. and they bought or leases property in a particular of the town for those home comforts. Pressure was increased on medical, school and policing as budgets did not increase in line with the population increase. Nothing was done to ease integration of the new population or assuage the concerns of Bostonians. In a very short space or time, Bostonians were faced with worse public services, changes to the cultural fabric of the town and we're also being accused of laziness.

In 2016 Boston delivered the highest Brexit vote in the country - 75.6% leave. It now has a Reform MP, Council and Mayor.

Boston is a microcosm: what happens when you have a place with low incomes, hard jobs, low opportunity, near total talent drain, death of traditional industries and minimal investment and then with no planning or additional investment, increase the size of the population with 15,000 immigrants? They blame the immigrants and immigration for the failures of successive governments, the failures of the capitalists and the failures of capitalism.

As I say, I'm a wooly lefty who thinks immigration is a good thing, but I have sympathy for people in Boston and anyone who's had their social fabric hastily changed by ill considered government or supra-national policy. People like Farage will always take advantage of situations like this, in their own self interests, and the problem for the people of Boston and others who had and have legitimate concerns over how their lives are governed is that they will see salvation in his message and their real issues will be indistinguishable from his stink.

I'll leave with this: during the Brexit campaign we were told that the treasury calculated that immigration was a net economic positive - £2bn p/a being the figure bandied about. But the small print of that report caveated that claim and figure on the basis that immigrants didn't stay longer than 5 years, at which point they become a net recipient. I'd bet not a single Brexit voter actually read that report, but I'd imagine in places like Boston the Brexit voters knew the claim simply wasn't true - otherwise they'd have been benefitting from it.

Two things struck me reading this, firstly how thatchers tories ripped the souls out of the mining industry and allowed entire communities to die.
There is an echo here.

This is part of the issue for me, farage comes from that thatcher tory world, he'd no sooner stand up for the common working person than he would throw some change at a homeless person. He is the gang-masters, the land owner, the pack house owner.
A grift has been set upon, "we've made a few quid undercutting the minimum wage, now that isn't as profitable, the people we used for that undercutting we'll throw under the bus and call them who we exploited your problem, and make it your job to deal with".
This is part of the underhand genius, no one can go back in time and point out the folly of the throat cutting, both of the exploited and those who they displaced, so now you can't get a Dr's appointment and you're angry about it, well, a convenient scape goat is available...

A bigger question exists, the cult of entitlement, I deserve before the next person. farage and his tories won't go short, they never do, at the cost of everyone else, so everyone else is left fighting for school places and medicine and the only dentist for 50 miles and and and...

Their dumping the Geneva convention and opting out of the human rights agreements is the first step to gulags for the poor and sick and exotic church attendees.

Amazing such scum can be produced by apparently the best and most expensive schooling in the world.

 

[Daveysgingerlovechild]

I flit between this line of thought or its simply that many just have an inclination towards racism/bigotry and revel in being a nasty arsehole. Sadly feeling it is more the latter these days.

I'll take that as another vote for bad smelly racists.

 

[JimmyJeffers]

I'll take that as another vote for bad smelly racists.

The worrying thing is, this isn’t quite fascism, but if certain people started calling for us to take that route, there would be no shortage of followers.

 

[summerisle]

Two things struck me reading this, firstly how thatchers tories ripped the souls out of the mining industry and allowed entire communities to die.
There is an echo here.

This is part of the issue for me, farage comes from that thatcher tory world, he'd no sooner stand up for the common working person than he would throw some change at a homeless person. He is the gang-masters, the land owner, the pack house owner.
A grift has been set upon, "we've made a few quid undercutting the minimum wage, now that isn't as profitable, the people we used for that undercutting we'll throw under the bus and call them who we exploited your problem, and make it your job to deal with".
This is part of the underhand genius, no one can go back in time and point out the folly of the throat cutting, both of the exploited and those who they displaced, so now you can't get a Dr's appointment and you're angry about it, well, a convenient scape goat is available...

A bigger question exists, the cult of entitlement, I deserve before the next person. farage and his tories won't go short, they never do, at the cost of everyone else, so everyone else is left fighting for school places and medicine and the only dentist for 50 miles and and and...

Their dumping the Geneva convention and opting out of the human rights agreements is the first step to gulags for the poor and sick and exotic church attendees.

Amazing such scum can be produced by apparently the best and most expensive schooling in the world.

He's a pound shop Trump.

Nigel Farage calls for UK gun laws to be relaxed

Ukip leader says ban on handguns brought in after Dunblane massacre is 'ludicrous'

www.theguardian.com

 

[summerisle]

 

[Rita_Poon]

bloody Peruvians, taking our jobs...

 

[Tony Hibbert's Wife]

Two things struck me reading this, firstly how thatchers tories ripped the souls out of the mining industry and allowed entire communities to die.
There is an echo here.

This is part of the issue for me, farage comes from that thatcher tory world, he'd no sooner stand up for the common working person than he would throw some change at a homeless person. He is the gang-masters, the land owner, the pack house owner.
A grift has been set upon, "we've made a few quid undercutting the minimum wage, now that isn't as profitable, the people we used for that undercutting we'll throw under the bus and call them who we exploited your problem, and make it your job to deal with".
This is part of the underhand genius, no one can go back in time and point out the folly of the throat cutting, both of the exploited and those who they displaced, so now you can't get a Dr's appointment and you're angry about it, well, a convenient scape goat is available...

A bigger question exists, the cult of entitlement, I deserve before the next person. farage and his tories won't go short, they never do, at the cost of everyone else, so everyone else is left fighting for school places and medicine and the only dentist for 50 miles and and and...

Their dumping the Geneva convention and opting out of the human rights agreements is the first step to gulags for the poor and sick and exotic church attendees.

Amazing such scum can be produced by apparently the best and most expensive schooling in the world.

It's a problem with capitalism, right? It's the system we rely on but also the system that will exploit and destroy working populations when convenient to do so.

Capital will always move from high cost areas to low cost areas, especially where the highest cost is labour. For something like coal or ship building, capital had already moved from the UK so the government was moving against capital by running those nationalised industries. All immigration - particularly via the EU - achieves is to enable capital within a country to extend the time the capital spends in that country. Once the framework to support capital exists in a low cost country, then capital will move to the low cost area. We've seen that with China, increasingly India and Bangladesh and increasingly in Eastern Europe.

Governments rely on taxation to provide public services and the generation of taxation requires the retention and acquisition of capital within the country. So all governments, and the EU, do is attempt to provide optimum conditions for capital. In the UK that's now focused on services, particularly financial services. But it also requires retaining a low-cost working population surplus (surplus is required otherwise labour costs rise) which requires large-scale immigration.

Now, take out the racists and the bigots - irredeemable. You're left with a low-skill population who are essentially victims of the movement and requirements of capital, completely out of their control. They don't see capital flight to low cost areas as the reason for their declining public services and living standards, because it's not something that can be seen at both ends by a local populace. They just see the declining services and living standards and the low cost working surplus that's changed the fabric of their communities. And those are the ones who are most vulnerable to being captured by the far right like Reform.

 

[Rita_Poon]

It's a problem with capitalism, right? It's the system we rely on but also the system that will exploit and destroy working populations when convenient to do so.

Capital will always move from high cost areas to low cost areas, especially where the highest cost is labour. For something like coal or ship building, capital had already moved from the UK so the government was moving against capital by running those nationalised industries. All immigration - particularly via the EU - achieves is to enable capital within a country to extend the time the capital spends in that country. Once the framework to support capital exists in a low cost country, then capital will move to the low cost area. We've seen that with China, increasingly India and Bangladesh and increasingly in Eastern Europe.

Governments rely on taxation to provide public services and the generation of taxation requires the retention and acquisition of capital within the country. So all governments, and the EU, do is attempt to provide optimum conditions for capital. In the UK that's now focused on services, particularly financial services. But it also requires retaining a low-cost working population surplus (surplus is required otherwise labour costs rise) which requires large-scale immigration.

Now, take out the racists and the bigots - irredeemable. You're left with a low-skill population who are essentially victims of the movement and requirements of capital, completely out of their control. They don't see capital flight to low cost areas as the reason for their declining public services and living standards, because it's not something that can be seen at both ends by a local populace. They just see the declining services and living standards and the low cost working surplus that's changed the fabric of their communities. And those are the ones who are most vulnerable to being captured by the far right like Reform.

Governance got into bed with capitalism, so google and others took a convenient low tax rate on offer through Ireland to circumvent tax where earned and billions are siphoned off.

Underhand yes, illegal no. My argument with this is, it's not right to have a staff but not throw in via tax to look after that staff, and so once that staff needs dr's and hospitals they are out of the door to rot and a new body is in. If that is the cost of progress, then it's a no thank you.

Another gripe with capitalism is the accountability aspect, atrocities can be commit via business and the individual beneficiaries involved can swan off responsibility free. See the Bhopal poisoning for example.

Would you believe the legal system got into bed with capitalism.

The issue is greed before need. It's probably also a bit rich of government to allow a cut throat work force to undercut the communities they serve without so much of a whimper. When governance turns it's back on communities, it invites the 'final solution' providers into the vacuum.

I jokingly referenced the rationing period of wwii and every shred of land put under the plough for working to provide. It might have been prescient.

 

[Blue 1]

New playground insult:

 

[Bryan+]

Hoping Bansky has a thoughtful retort to these gammons.

 

[Andy McGurk]

I'd consider myself pretty hard left economically and wooly/liberal lefty socially.

I grew up in Boston, which to the uninitiated is a small market town in South Lincolnshire. It's an hour to the nearest city - Peterborough or Lincoln, take your pick. The main work is in the surrounding industrial farmland and agriculture supply chain. The shellfish industry is long gone, although there remains a profitable port. The biggest employer is the NHS by way of the large hospital that serves the surrounding area. The town has two grammar schools and each year all the 18 year olds from those schools leave for university and never return.

As a youth I worked in the various packhouses and on the land. The labour is largely supplied by gangmasters, who charge their premium for supplying the work to the employer and then use every wheeze in the book to skim off the gang workers - transport tariff, PPE tariff, administration charges galore. The work is hard and boring. For those who've left school at 16 with limited qualifications, options for employment are pretty much limited to working in the packhouse or on the land.

In around 2003 a huge number of Eastern Europeans began to arrive, displacing the Portuguese who'd been working in the area since 2001. They were compliant, hard working and were happy to take accomodation from the gangmasters. The amounts they were paid were considered sufficient and many were either saving to move back home or were sending money home. The gangmasters, landowners and packhouse owners liked them as they never complained, always turned up for work and would happily work overtime whenever called upon to do so. The local workers were smeared as lazy. I worked in packhouse and on the land from the age of 16 in 1998 to around 2003 and can honestly say the British workers were timely, honest and hard working, just not open to exploitation.

The population of the town grew from around 30,000 to around 50,000 - a huge increase. As happens with immigrant populations, the Eastern Europeans wanted their own shops, drinking establishments etc. and they bought or leases property in a particular of the town for those home comforts. Pressure was increased on medical, school and policing as budgets did not increase in line with the population increase. Nothing was done to ease integration of the new population or assuage the concerns of Bostonians. In a very short space or time, Bostonians were faced with worse public services, changes to the cultural fabric of the town and we're also being accused of laziness.

In 2016 Boston delivered the highest Brexit vote in the country - 75.6% leave. It now has a Reform MP, Council and Mayor.

Boston is a microcosm: what happens when you have a place with low incomes, hard jobs, low opportunity, near total talent drain, death of traditional industries and minimal investment and then with no planning or additional investment, increase the size of the population with 15,000 immigrants? They blame the immigrants and immigration for the failures of successive governments, the failures of the capitalists and the failures of capitalism.

As I say, I'm a wooly lefty who thinks immigration is a good thing, but I have sympathy for people in Boston and anyone who's had their social fabric hastily changed by ill considered government or supra-national policy. People like Farage will always take advantage of situations like this, in their own self interests, and the problem for the people of Boston and others who had and have legitimate concerns over how their lives are governed is that they will see salvation in his message and their real issues will be indistinguishable from his stink.

I'll leave with this: during the Brexit campaign we were told that the treasury calculated that immigration was a net economic positive - £2bn p/a being the figure bandied about. But the small print of that report caveated that claim and figure on the basis that immigrants didn't stay longer than 5 years, at which point they become a net recipient. I'd bet not a single Brexit voter actually read that report, but I'd imagine in places like Boston the Brexit voters knew the claim simply wasn't true - otherwise they'd have been benefitting from it.

I live round in a similar area, I'd have more sympathy with them if it weren't for them voting in that lettuce 2.0 Andrea Jenkyns. Not one talking about those real issues you mentioned, it's still stop the boats, hotels etc, and I'd hazard a guess that there exactly 0 hotels for them to actually be worried about in the whole county let alone Boston

 

[Andy McGurk]

Also what happens when road kill is on the roundabout, as I saw a dead hedgehog on one. Do they quickly try and clean it to make sure it's respected? Or do they leave because, you know, it's just a roundabout and maybe there's another agenda at hand